


You Know I Love You Kid, Right? December 1974

by BobbyCrocker101



Category: Kojak (TV 1973)
Genre: 1970s, Call Girls, Corrupt Cops, Corruption, Detectives, Gen, Manhattan South, NYPD, New York City, Prostitutes, Stool Pigeons, Stoolies, homicides, informants, murders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22212040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BobbyCrocker101/pseuds/BobbyCrocker101
Summary: Kojak's thoughts concerning the events that occurred in the Season 2 episode 'The Betrayal' with a few bits added.This is an original story set in December 1974.Feedback welcome
Kudos: 1





	You Know I Love You Kid, Right? December 1974

**Author's Note:**

> None of the characters belong to me; I'm just playing with them for a while before putting them back in their box. No money is being, or will be made from this story.
> 
> I was 15 in September 1973 when "Kojak" first aired, and had other things to do. Now I'm retired I’ve finally watched this wonderful old TV show for the first time. I’m from the UK and have never visited the US, but have made use of the internet to gain information about the NYPD and the city of New York. I apologise in advance for any language confusion.
> 
> In the Season 2 episode “Nursemaid” (1974) Crocker’s ID shows him to have been born in 1943 which would make him 31 in 1974, but because he's occasionally referred to as being very young and is often called "Kid" or "Junior", my version of him was born in 1951 which makes him 23 in this story, and as little is known about his back story, I've made up my own version.
> 
> Original characters: Carla and Police Woman Trent
> 
> Spoiler alert: Major spoilers for the Season 2 episode 'The Betrayal' (1974).
> 
> The Betrayal is one of my favourite Kojak episodes, but the end always bothered me. Kojak says something nice to Crocker to make up for yelling at him in the office, but this was one episode where he didn't really yell at him all that much. So I've based the story on the episode and added a few extra bits. In addition Kojak was seen in several scenes with an attractive blonde lady. Since her name was never revealed, I've called her Carla. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Present day…

I arrived in the squad room of the Manhattan South Detectives Division feeling numb. I’d been like a bear with a sore head for the past couple of days, but now I had a reason to yell and scream the anger wouldn’t come. Ignoring the men as they looked first at me and then at one another I walked into my office and quietly closed the door. As I sat at my desk Crocker’s question from last night was still running round in my head: was Sam Calucci straight? The truth was I honestly didn’t know… 

“I just heard about Calucci, are you alright Theo?” Captain McNeil asked as he came into my office via the interrogation room.

“To be honest Frank, I don’t know. I left Crocker to finish up. He said he’d go and tell Calucci’s wife.” I felt bad about walking away and leaving Crocker to sort out the ‘mess’, but I needed to get away and I sensed HE needed to be kept busy.

“As the ranking officer on the case shouldn’t YOU be doing that?” Frank asked.

“Crocker’s going to be a lieutenant one day Mac; he needs to learn all this stuff. He’ll be OK.” At that moment my friend was called away and I was left with my thoughts…

****

Two days earlier…

My night off had started perfectly. I had been out food shopping with Carla, a lovely creature I’d been dating for a while. We’d planned a quiet dinner at her place with something special planned for ‘dessert’. Then I got the call to say that officers Sam Calucci and Al Cohen had got themselves involved with a break-in at Fineman’s Jewellers off 7th Avenue on 12th and that a man had been killed. I arrived at the scene to find Crocker already present and quietly managing everything with the assistance of Saperstein and Stavros. Frank arrived soon after and was quite excited by the bust. How had he put it? 

“Calucci is coming on like a real tiger these days; he’s breaking cases like balloons at my grandson’s birthday party.” Or something like that. 

I told Carla I’d only be a couple of minutes, which had then stretched into an hour, then two. Feeling frustrated I angrily asked Crocker if anyone had actually bothered looking for the burglar’s car, and hearing that they hadn’t ordered him and Saperstein to go and look for it, and sarcastically added that they should maybe look for a black one to match the outfit the man had been wearing. In the back of the store I interviewed Calucci while Frank interviewed Cohen and as far as we were both concerned it was an open and shut case, their stories matched and everything had been done by the book. So why was I feeling uneasy?

Then when Crocker had come back to report that the burglar’s car had been found, that it was in fact red and he’d found a driver’s license under the seat providing both the burglar’s name: Randy Courtland, and his address: an apartment on East 40th I yelled at him again and told him to take Stavros and 'toss' the place, while I drove Carla back to her apartment to hopefully finish what we’d begun earlier. I did feel a little guilty for yelling at Crocker, after all it wasn’t his fault my evening hadn’t turned out exactly as planned, and I had a vague recollection that it should have been HIS night off too, but one look at the gorgeous blonde sitting next to me in the car and all thoughts of work were forgotten. Back at her apartment I was nicely relaxed and listening to some opera and flicking through one of her magazines while she was preparing dinner when the phone rang.

Somehow I knew it would be Crocker on the end of the line even before Carla picked up the receiver and threw it at me. He and Stavros had checked over Courtland’s apartment and had discovered someone had ransacked the place just before they’d arrived. In the bedroom they’d found what had been a hidden compartment under the floor, which was now empty, but presumably had until recently contained a large sum of money. By the time I arrived back at East 40th they had woken Mrs Kramer the building manager, but she wasn’t giving them the answers I wanted to hear. I could see a more mature approach was needed with her and took over the questioning, and made a note to myself to teach Crocker the gentle art of flattery. It goes a long way I find, especially with the more mature ladies. Mrs Kramer, who told me her name was Molly, remembered that Courtland had a lady friend and that she'd seen her earlier waiting for the elevator. I managed to sweet talk Mrs Kramer into going down to the precinct right away to look at some mugshots and then ordered Crocker to send for the Forensics Team. Leaving him in charge I headed back up town. Carla had left a door key in my coat pocket so perhaps all was not lost. I was getting sorely frustrated.

One day earlier…

I arrived at the precinct just before 7am feeling even more frustrated than I was the night before. I’m a hot-blooded Greek man and if I don’t get any ‘action’ soon I’ll explode! Using the door key she’d left in my coat pocket I’d let myself back into Carla’s apartment only to find she’d gone to bed and was sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her I left the key on the kitchen counter and headed back to my place. But I couldn’t sleep, and by 6am I gave up trying and decided to head to the station and catch up with some paperwork. When I arrived in the squad room Vine told me that Crocker had been called to a homicide on East 32nd on his way in. Absently I wondered how much sleep HE'D had. I headed to my office, where I buried myself in the end of year evaluation reports before reading Calucci and Cohen’s reports from the night before. At least there was some good news, Mrs Kramer had identified Courtland’s girlfriend from the mugshot files; a call-girl called Karen Liebowitz.

Crocker arrived in the squad room just after lunch, and forgetting I’d already been told, I bawled him out for being late in, and had to be reminded by Vine that he’d already told me that Crocker would be arriving late due to having been called to a homicide. The kid looked exhausted and not a little sick; whatever had gone down on East 32nd must have been bad. I headed back to my office and an hour later he walked into the room carrying the file containing his report. Annoyed that my train of thought had been interrupted I banged my pen down and glared at him. He then slammed the file down on my desk and turned and left without saying a word. I picked it up and read through it. The incident to which he had been called had involved a woman, three children under ten and their father who had shot and killed them all before turning his gun on himself. No wonder Crocker was looking shaky. Knowing he'd had a bad start in life himself and had probably witnessed things no child should ever have to see I have often wondered what if anything could break through the wall he'd built round himself: now I knew. Mutilated bodies hanging on meat hooks? No problem. Bodies being scraped off the highway? No worries. Bodies burned beyond recognition? Bring it on. But a case involving kids? That was different. I remember he once walked into the squad room on a day when the men were playing a game of ‘How Old Were You When…' Someone asked Crocker how old he’d been when he'd seen his first dead body. He replied that he’d been five. The ‘game’ had ended immediately.

I was going to ask him if he was OK, but then Gil Weaver ‘our man in Harlem’, arrived in my office, and dropped the bombshell that one of my team wasn’t as ‘straight’ as they should be. That his undercover ‘boss’, a local gangster called Strickland had been approached by a small time hustler called Buddy Maus. The man had tried to ingratiate himself with Strickland offering him twelve thousand dollars a week to end his current ‘arrangement’ with Tony Bosch. Not only that, he had claimed to be able to offer Strickland something Bosch couldn’t: protection, because he had a cop in his pocket; a detective no less, currently working on West 57th, part of the area covered by Manhattan South.

To say I was livid would be putting it mildly. The last thing I wanted was Internal Affairs hanging around asking questions so I ordered Weaver to find out the identity of the detective referred to by Maus. Weaver, close to the edge at the best of times, lost his temper and demanded to know why he was being asked to do Internal Affairs' job for them, especially as he was also supposed to be reporting to Strickland. I told him that from now on whatever he told Strickland he also told ME. We argued for a few minutes before he stormed out of the squad room telling me he would be in touch as soon as he found out anything. From my desk I noticed Crocker watching with a look of concern on his face, and then he dropped his head and walked across the squad room and out of my line of sight. I still wanted to ask him if he was OK, but other stuff kept getting in the way. Rizzo came into my office with a photograph of Karen Liebowitz and I’d stared at the man for a long time trying to figure out if HE was the detective Maus had in his pocket. I finally decided that despite Rizzo’s gambling problems, he was loyal through and through, and let the matter drop.

A few hours later he and Stavros reported that they had found an address for Karen Liebowitz through, of all things, a jaywalking ticket issued to her a few weeks before: the 49er Motel. I decided to pay her a visit on my way home. Later as I walked through the squad room I noticed Crocker and Stavros decorating the office Christmas tree with mugshots rather than candy cane. They were planning to put mass-murderer Sam Moselle at the top. It’s not that I’m particularly religious, but mug shots on a Christmas tree? Crocker had made some comment about them representing the presents the men were hoping to get. Angrily I told him and Stavros to take the photos down and order some candy cane. Finally as I headed out of the squad room I heard Crocker ask if 2653598 was where I could be reached. Crocker is good at remembering telephone numbers. How does the kid do it?

****

My visit to the 49er Motel proved to be unsuccessful; Karen Liebowitz was not at home, and according to her roomie Bobbie George, underage by the look of her, Karen was known to disappear for days at a time. But before I left she did mention that Karen had seen whoever it was that had burgled Courtland’s apartment. I called Rizzo and ordered him to work with Ms George to find Karen before someone else did.

****

Calucci. That was the name Weaver had said on the phone: Sam Calucci; currently out in the Squad room talking to someone on the phone. I called him into my office and asked him about Buddy Maus. At first he denied knowing him, and then after I pressed he admitted he might have heard of him, before finally admitting the man was his informant. Apparently the two of them had set up a big narco bust that night to bring down Tony Bosch, and Calucci was happy to lie for and cover up for Maus. I told him to get rid of the man because he was dangerous, but Calucci refused pointing out more than once that thanks to Maus he’d made fifteen arrests in fourteen months, and that last night the man had saved his life. He'd then stormed out of my office angrily telling me that sometimes he wondered why he bothered. Crocker had walked into the office while we were arguing to report that Rizzo and Bobbie George had just missed Karen Liebowitz. I took my frustration out on him and picking up his report threw it back at him and asked him if he’d typed it with his thumbs. I noticed once again the way he dropped his eyes and lowered his head before turning and leaving. Damn it! The way things were going Crocker would probably start wondering why HE bothered.

I desperately needed to speak to the captain, and the two of us had ended up in the holding cage because it was the only space that wasn’t occupied. I’d thought about it and had made up my mind to put Calucci back on foot patrol despite him being only one arrest away from a gold shield. Frank wasn’t happy, but Calucci was being controlled by his informant and refused to give him up; treating him more like a friend than a stoolie; talking in terms of ‘we’ and ‘us’ as if they were partners! This wasn’t going to end well. There was no doubt that bringing down Tony Bosch would be a huge coup for the department, but not at this price. Unfortunately Frank had been contacted by 'upstairs' and they were very keen to see Tony Bosch brought down as soon as humanly possible. There was nothing I could do apart from to watch the whole sorry mess unfold.

****

Finally we got a lead on Karen Liebowitz; she’d been seen in the bar at the Palm Lounge on 34th near the sports ground. The Knicks were playing a home game and apparently she liked the sports crowd. I grabbed Crocker in the hope we could at least talk while driving through town, but things were so tense in the department we barely exchanged two words. Sadly we were a few minutes too late. We'd barely set foot in the bar when the sound of a woman screaming was heard coming from the back of the building. We arrived at the scene to find Karen Liebowitz dead, having fallen through the roof of an elevator car. Whether she was pushed or was the victim of a terrible accident no one will ever know, but the Coroner’s initial report indicated that she had received several nasty bruises to her abdomen before she’d died, as if she’d been punched. Joe the barman told us he'd received a phone call earlier from a man asking for Karen by name and that he'd directed her to the public phones at the back of the building. He gave us a description of the man he thought she’d gone to meet: small built; about five feet and six inches, and wearing a tan-coloured leather jacket. The description matched what we knew of Buddy Maus.

Then another piece of luck had come our way. Concerned that his informant was late contacting him Calucci phoned the precinct from a call box on 23rd and 2nd. Stavros took the call and asked for the phone number in case Maus called the office. He’d passed the number to McNeil who then relayed it to me as I drove through town with Crocker. I then called Calucci and told him that Karen Liebowitz was dead and it was likely Maus had killed her. In an attempt to make amends Calucci revealed that HE was the person who had given Karen's identity away to Maus. I told him to stay put until we arrived, but by the time we reached the area both Calucci and Maus were down.

****

What happened next is a blur. I remember Crocker coming across and telling me Calucci was dead, but for some reason all I was concerned about was the whereabouts of his coat. Call me an old softy: but I care about the kid and it was too cold and wet to be outside without one. Crocker had looked back to where Calucci was lying and I could see that he had placed his coat over the other man’s body, a gesture which touched me deeply; Crocker's a good kid. I could also see that he was trying very hard to hide the fact that he was falling apart; his eyes were a little brighter than usual. He and Calucci had worked together on several cases and had also become good friends outside of work. There was also the matter of the multiple homicides he’d had to deal with earlier in the day. 

I couldn’t go on for much longer and I felt rather selfish, but because I was in a position to walk away I asked Crocker to cover everything and turned to leave. It was then that he’d asked me if Calucci had been ‘straight’. Mostly to satisfy myself I told him that yes, the man was ‘straight’, but truthfully I didn’t know. As I turned to walk back to my car I began to wonder if Calucci had acted in the reckless way he had because he thought I didn’t like him, and I wondered if Crocker felt the same way; that I didn’t like HIM. Wanting to reassure him that I cared I turned back and looking him in the eye told him that despite always yelling at him in the office I love him. Crocker, his eyes sparkling, had asked me if I was kidding him, but I knew he was really saying he understood and that he appreciated it. As I walked away he offered to go and see Calucci’s wife. I put up my hand, showing him MY appreciation.

****

Present day continued…

I hadn’t realised how much time had passed until I looked up and saw Crocker standing in my office doorway. I noticed he was a little hesitant as he walked into the room with the incident report he’d handed in earlier, now re-typed.

“I thought you might have headed home, you look exhausted,” I told him. He told me that he’d thought about it but figured he wouldn’t be able to sleep so had come back to the precinct to re-type his report from earlier in the day. 

“Are YOU OK?” he asked kindly. One thing I noticed about Crocker early on was how much he cares, though he tries to hide it. For a homicide detective, he probably cares too much but I’d rather have him like that than being a case-hardened cynic like me. Sadly I thought, something will happen one day that will forever change him. I nodded.

“Calucci’s wife?” I asked as I invited him to sit.

“I stayed with her until her family arrived. I got Police Woman Trent to come with me; she’s still there, just in case.” I nodded. 

At that moment the Frank walked into the room. He’d been down town talking with the ME and the IAD who had been looking into Calucci’s affairs. Crocker got up to leave but Frank told him to stay put. 

“I’ve spoken with the ME: it looks as if both men were killed with Calucci’s gun as Maus was unarmed and both men’s fingerprints are on the weapon. Agajanian thinks they probably got into a fight and Calucci got hit first and then killed Maus as he tried to get away. And you’ll both be pleased to hear that it looks as if Calucci WAS ‘straight’. There’s no evidence of him having received any money other than his pay. IAD think his informant was providing him with leads and then while he was out making the arrests, Maus, who would have all the time he needed, was robbing them. It looks as if all Calucci wanted in return was a gold shield. Shame he had to go about it the way he did.” 

Shame indeed I thought.


End file.
